It is common to place tags on dimension lumber for price and inventory control purposes. Affixing these tags to individual pieces of lumber has, unfortunately, been a time-consuming process. Although a staple gun is normally used, tagging proceeds slowly since manually positioning a staple gun and squeezing its trigger to affix a tag is a relatively slow endeavor. Thus, a manufacturer of large quantities of lumber can find itself employing, at high cost, several laborers for tagging purposes.
Efforts to automate the process of tagging lumber have not met with great success. Normal variations in the length, width, and height of dimension lumber from one piece to another have plagued past designers by making it difficult to affix tags in rapid succession. Warps or twists in many lumber pieces further complicate the matter of affixing tags. A need, therefore, exists for an automated apparatus which is capable of rapidly affixing tags to an indefinite number of lumber pieces regardless of slight variations in the length, width, height and shape of the lumber pieces.